


Plath and Prouvaire

by bloodscout, SherlockHolmes



Series: Apollo and Ares [1]
Category: Being Human (UK), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Backstory, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, France - Freeform, Gen, POV Second Person, Sylvia Plath - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodscout/pseuds/bloodscout, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockHolmes/pseuds/SherlockHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are thirteen, and the first piece of poetry you read - that you really read, not just skim over for class - is Sylvia Plath.</p>
<p>Part of the "Apollo and Ares" series, but can be read as a oneshot. No knowledge of Being Human strictly necessary for this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plath and Prouvaire

**Author's Note:**

> If domestic abuse or child abuse is something you don't want to read, I really suggest you don't continue with this fic. This is honestly just shameless Jehan backstory. Do enjoy!

 

  
 _The vampire who said he was you_  
 _And drank my blood for a year,_  
 _Seven years, if you want to know._  
 _Daddy, you can lie back now._  


 _Sylvia Plath - Daddy_

 ** ******  
You are twelve years old. You have just seen your father hit your mother for the very first time. It isn’t like you hadn’t known what was going on. You’re twelve, not two, and for a few months there has been nothing so distinctive as the sound of your father’s flat palm hitting the skin of your mother’s face. You hear them shout when they think you’re asleep, and you wake to the sound of the front door slamming, and your mother crying.

You spend the next few sleepless hours pinned to your bed, unable to move. You can’t make a sound, in case they know you’re awake. It is so, so different to know something has happened and to actually see it.

You do not cry, simply because your father forbade it.

***

You are thirteen years old. You are hiding in the library, because when you get home, you are scared that your father might be there. You are curled in the quietest corner of the library, surrounded by names you haven’t really heard before: Sappho, Milton, Keats. You push your palms into your scrunched eyes to clear the haze and try to read to sign that hangs above you:  
“Poetry”

You are thirteen, and the first piece of poetry you read - that you really read, not just skim over for class - is Sylvia Plath.

***

Your teacher notices you scribbling in the margins of your book and your homework when you are fifteen. It takes awhile for him to notice, for the sort couplets and haikus to mean much more than a teenage boy’s idle musings, but he hold you back after class one crisp Tuesday in November.

“Jean,” he says. “This is good.”

He hands you back your homework, face down. You’ve written a sonnet on the back in blunt blue pencil.

 

“It’s nothing.” you say, ducking your head down, as if your sombre grey sweater is something of great interest.

“I’m impressed, is all.” your teacher says. “It’s dark, I’ll admit, but you have talent.”

You mutter a soft merci, monsieur, and leave the classroom, your stomach an odd mix of pride and betrayal. No-one has ever read your poetry before.

***

When you are seventeen, you pass your Bac exams. When you receive your acceptance letter in the mail, you wait until you are in the library to open it. Your hands are shaking as you peel open the envelope, the “Par Avion” stamped ominously on the front.

 _Dear Mr. Prouvaire,_

  
 _You have been accepted into the Bachelor of Arts programme at-_

The first words hit you square in the chest, and you are silently gasping for air in a soft armchair in the poetry section of a small-town French library.

Two days later, you pack your bags. You have been saving up for this since you turned fifteen and someone told you that you had talent. The night you tell your parents you are leaving is the first night that your father hits you to bruise. You smile as your split lip spills blood between your fingertips, though, because you know it will also be the last.

***

You are eighteen when your roommate Courfeyrac tells you you dress like an undertaker. He is joking when he says it, but you cannot help but think. You are eighteen when you realise that you still dress like your father.

Courfeyrac is there when you throw out all of your old clothes, wild on sorrow and drink. He is there as you stuff black plastic bags into donation bins late at night. He holds your slowly lengthening hair back as you heave vomit and tears into the bushes next to them. Courfeyrac is there the first time you venture into a thrift store to buy new clothes. He helps you economise, and doesn’t comment on the hideously colourful choices you make, or that practically all of the patterns clash. He understands that sometimes you need to make radical changes. He knows that you are carving a whole new life out of your father’s granite heart.

That year, Jean Prouvaire, the quiet, soft-spoken languages student is lost. When you are eighteen, Jehan Prouvaire, the excitable, affectionate, colourful poet is born. You love him more than you think you have loved anyone before.

***

Enjolras suggests you houseshare when you are nineteen, and can no longer stay in the university-assigned housing.

“I have a few friends who live together, not far from campus.” Enjolras tells you one afternoon, as you are getting coffee after the French Language Association meeting. “They have a spare bedroom. You could stay there.”

“Oh?” You prompt, tucking an escaping flower back into your plait.

“Rent is cheap, and they’re nice people. I’ve know Mitchell - the Irish one - for a very long time.”

“An Irishman?” You ask, smirking slightly.

Enjolras nods, his blonde curls sweeping across his face. There is a twitch at the side of his lips, a private smile for the two of you. “You could complain about the English together.”

After you have had your coffee, Enjolras organises a time for you to meet with his strange pair of friends.

To this day, you still do not know if it was a bad decision **.**  



End file.
